Zoe Bäckstedt and Joshua Tarling win Worlds U19 time trials
Zoe Bäckstedt and Joshua Tarling win Worlds U19 time trials
WOLLONGONG, Australia (CT) – Zoe Bäckstedt and Joshua Tarling have doubled up for Great Britain on day three of the Wollongong Road Worlds, winning the women’s and men’s U19 time trials.
Seventeen-year-old Bäckstedt started as the favourite in the junior women’s event and duly lived up to her billing, completing the 14.1 km course in a time of 18:27 (45.9 km/h) – considerably faster than her goal of 20 minutes and more than 90 seconds faster than her closest rival.
Germany’s Justyna Czapla claimed the silver medal, 13 seconds ahead of Belgium’s Febe Jooris.
“Last year it was painful getting second, but also it was my first championship event so I was really happy with being on the podium,” Bäckstedt said. “And then this year I knew that I wanted to win it. And I came in hoping to win it. And yeah, I pulled it out of the bag today so I’m really happy with that. But it was really tough.
“There was a lot of people going ‘she’s the favourite’ so yeah, I needed to win. But I tried to keep all that pressure away from me and just focus on myself.”
Bäckstedt goes into the weekend’s road race as defending champion and the favourite for a repeat victory. She has signed with EF Education-Tibco-SVB for next season, joining her older sister Elynor in the WorldTour.
She is now the reigning world champion in four different disciplines: road race, time trial, madison and cyclocross.
In the junior men’s time trial, Australia’s Hamish McKenzie was fourth rider down the start ramp and announced himself as the rider to beat. The Australian junior time trial champion set the best time at both intermediate checks and the finish, and ended up spending almost three hours in the hotseat, waiting to see whether anyone would beat his time.
In the end only 18-year-old Tarling was able to topple the Australian, setting new best times at both intermediate time checks before taking 19 seconds off McKenzie’s time at the finish. His time of 34:59 for the 28.8 km course saw him average 49.4 km/h.
McKenzie held on for the silver medal while Germany’s Emil Herzog rounded out the podium.
“It just feels like a relief,” Tarling said. “So much hard work [went into it]. I was a bit annoyed after last year [finishing second]. I really wanted it and it’s just a relief, mainly.”
Tarling’s win comes a year after he was runner-up in the same event in Flanders. He recently signed a three-year deal with Ineos Grenadiers, from 2023 to 2025.
